F. A. Hayek The Road to Serfdom ~ \ L f () : I~ ~ London and New York ( m v ..<I S 5 \ First published 1944 by George Routledge & Sons First published in Routledge Classics 2001 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4 RN 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Repri nted 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor CJ( Francis Group, an informa business © 1944 F. A. Hayek Typeset in Joanna by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 10: 0-415-25543-0 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-415-25389-6 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-25543-1 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-25389-5 (pbk) CONTENTS PREFACE vii Introduction 1 The Abandoned Road 10 2 The Great Utopia 24 3 Individualism and Collectivism 33 4 The "Inevitability" of Planning 45 5 Planning and Democracy 59 6 Planning and the Rule of Law 75 7 Economic Control and Totalitarianism 91 8 Who, Whom? 1°5 9 Security and Freedom 123 10 Why the Worst Get on Top 138 11 The End ofTruth 157 12 The Socialist Roots of Nazism 171 13 The Totalitarians in our Midst 186 14 Material Conditions and Ideal Ends 207 15 The Prospects of International Order 225 2 THE GREAT UTOPIA What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven. F. Hoelderlin. That socialism has displaced liberalism as the doctrine held by the great majority of progressives does not simply mean that people had forgotten the warnings ofthe great liberal thinkers of the past about the consequences ofcollectivism. It has happened because they were persuaded of the very opposite ofwhat these men had predicted. The extraordinary thing is that the same socialism that was not only early recognised as the gravest threat to freedom, but quite openly began as a reaction against the liberalism of the French Revolution, gained general acceptance under the flag ofliberty. It is rarely remembered now that social­ ism in its beginnings was frankly authoritarian. The French writers who laid the foundations of modern socialism had no doubt that their ideas could be put into practice only by a strong dictatorial government. To them socialism meant an attempt to "terminate the revolution" by a deliberate reorganisation of TH E GREAT UTOPIA 25 society on hierarchical lines, and the imposition of a coercive "spiritual power". Where freedom was concerned, the founders of socialism made no bones about their intentions. Freedom of thought they regarded as the root-evil of nineteenth-century society, and the first ofmodern planners, Saint-Simon, even pre­ dicted that those who did not obey his proposed planning boards would be "treated as cattle". Only under the influence of the strong democratic currents preceding the revolution of 1848 did socialism begin to ally itself with the forces of freedom. But it took the new "demo­ cratic socialism" a long time to live down the suspicions aroused by its antecedents. Nobody saw more clearly than de Tocqueville that democracy as an essentially individualist institution stood in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: Democracy extends the sphere ofindividual freedom [he said in 1848], socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.' To allay these suspicions and to harness to its cart the strongest of all political motives, the craving for freedom, socialism began increasingly to make use of the promise of a "new freedom". The coming of socialism was to be the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. It was to bring "economic freedom", without which the political freedom already gained was "not worth having". Only socialism was capable ofeffecting I "Discours prononce aI'assemblee constituante Ie 12 Septembre 1848 sur Ia question du droit au travail." CEuvres completes d'Alexis de Tocquevi11~ vol. IX, 1866, p.546. 26 THE ROAD TO SERFDOM the consummation ofthe agelong struggle for freedom in which the attainment ofpolitical freedom was but a first step. The subtle change in meaning to which the word freedom was subjected in order that this argument should sound plaus­ ible is important. To the great apostles of political freedom the word had meant freedom from coercion, freedom from the arbi­ trary power of other men, release from the ties which left the individual no choice but obedience to the orders ofa superior to whom he was attached. The new freedom promised, however, was to be freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us, although for some very much more than for others. Before man could be truly free, the "despotism of physical want" had to be broken, the "restraints ofthe economic system" relaxed. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power! or wealth. Yet, although the promises of this new free­ dom were often coupled with irresponsible promises of a great increase in material wealth in a socialist society, it was not from such an absolute conquest of the niggardliness of nature that economic freedom was expected. What the promise really amounted to was that the great existing disparities in the range of choice of different people were to disappear. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old 1 The characteristic confusion of freedom with power, which we shall meet again and again throughout this discussion, is too big a subject to be thor­ oughly examined here. As old as socialism itself, it is so closely allied with it that almost seventy years ago a French scholar, discussing its Saint-Simonian origins, was led to say that this theory of liberty"est aelle seule tout Ie social­ isme" CPo Janet, Saint-Simon et Ie Saint-Simonisme, 1878, p. 26, note). The most explicit defender of this confusion is, significantly, the leading philosopher of American left-wingism, John Dewey, according to whom "liberty is the effect­ ive power to do specific things" so that "the demand for liberty is demand for power" ("Liberty and Social Control", The Social Frontier, November 1935, p. 41). THE GREAT UTOPIA 27 demand for an equal distribution of wealth. But the new name gave the socialists another word in common with the liberals and they exploited it to the full. And although the word was used in a different sense by the two groups, few people noticed this and still fewer asked themselves whether the two kinds of freedom promised really could be combined. There can be no doubt that the promise of greater freedom has become one of the most effective weapons of socialist propaganda and that the belief that socialism would bring free­ dom is genuine and sincere. But this would only heighten the tragedy if it should prove that what was promised to us as the Road to Freedom was in fact the High Road to Servitude. Unquestionably the promise of more freedom was responsible for luring more and more liberals along the socialist road, for blinding them to the conflict which exists between the basic principles of socialism and liberalism, and for often enabling socialists to usurp the very name of the old party of freedom. Socialism was embraced by the greater part of the intelligentsia as the apparent heir of the liberal tradition: therefore it is not surprising that to them the idea should appear inconceivable of socialism leading to the opposite ofliberty. * * * * * In recent years, however, the old apprehensions of the unforeseen consequences of socialism have once more been strongly voiced from the most unexpected quarters. Observer after observer, in spite ofthe contrary expectation with which he approached his subject, has been impressed with the extraordin­ ary similarity in many respects of the conditions under "fas­ cism" and "communism". While "progressives" in this country and elsewhere were still deluding themselves that communism and fascism represented opposite poles, more and more people began to ask themselves whether these new tyrannies were not the outcome of the same tendencies. Even communists must 28 THE ROAD TO SERFDOM have been somewhat shaken by such testimonies as that of Mr. Max Eastman, Lenin's old friend, who found himself compelled to admit that "instead of being better, Stalinism is worse than fascism, more ruthless, barbarous, unjust, immoral, anti­ democratic, unredeemed by any hope or scruple", and that it is "better described as superfascist"; and when we find the same author recognising that "Stalinism is socialism, in the sense of being an inevitable although unforeseen political accompani­ ment of the nationalisation and collectivisation which he had relied upon as part of his plan for erecting a classless society", 1 his conclusion clearly achieves wider significance. Mr. Eastman's case is perhaps the most remarkable, yet he is by no means the first or the only sympathetic observer of the Rus­ sian experiment to form similar conclusions. Several years earlier Mr.